It's been fun hearing DHH from 37signals talk about their cloud exit. In summary, they are moving from AWS back to their own data center and hardware. I think it's a cool idea, and love that they are willing to give it a shot.
It's interesting, though, for them to go back like this, as most tech companies, I'm sure, moved to platforms like AWS for a reason. I know we did.
What is everyone else missing that DHH sees? Is the cost saving to run your own hardware really worth it? Do they lose the redundancy that is offered by cloud providers? What are the risks, pros, and cons of each option?
The thought of the company I work for making this sort of move sounds like a big backward step. We just don't have the capital, expertise, team, or even the desire to make this type of move.
We had a bad situation last year where we hosted one of our applications on bare metal servers. The company we hosted with had been sold, and they were "getting rid of" customers on their legacy hardware. Moving off of their platform was an absolute nightmare due to various limitations on their end, and we experienced significant downtime. It was a pretty crappy week, to say the least. Now I'll admit we didn't own and manage the hardware like 37signals is planning to do, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
I will say that the technology to manage servers, containers, and so on has come a long way in the last decade, so I can imagine deploying your own hardware is easier than it used to be. But still, it opens up a big area within a business to be focused on.
Cheers to 37signals and their gutsy move! I hope it goes well for them :)
It's interesting, though, for them to go back like this, as most tech companies, I'm sure, moved to platforms like AWS for a reason. I know we did.
What is everyone else missing that DHH sees? Is the cost saving to run your own hardware really worth it? Do they lose the redundancy that is offered by cloud providers? What are the risks, pros, and cons of each option?
The thought of the company I work for making this sort of move sounds like a big backward step. We just don't have the capital, expertise, team, or even the desire to make this type of move.
We had a bad situation last year where we hosted one of our applications on bare metal servers. The company we hosted with had been sold, and they were "getting rid of" customers on their legacy hardware. Moving off of their platform was an absolute nightmare due to various limitations on their end, and we experienced significant downtime. It was a pretty crappy week, to say the least. Now I'll admit we didn't own and manage the hardware like 37signals is planning to do, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
I will say that the technology to manage servers, containers, and so on has come a long way in the last decade, so I can imagine deploying your own hardware is easier than it used to be. But still, it opens up a big area within a business to be focused on.
Cheers to 37signals and their gutsy move! I hope it goes well for them :)
-Ben